The Oakland Privacy Group today demanded through counsel that Oakland city government immediately Cease and Desist building the Domain Awareness Center and stop working with military contractors in violation of Oakland’s Nuclear Free Zone ordinance or face a lawsuit.

City staff is currently urging city council to move forward with building the DAC by signing a contract with military contractor Schneider Electric. Signing such a contract would be a clear violation of Oakland’s Nuclear Free Zone ordinance.The council’s next vote on this issue is on Tuesday, January 28.

In their recommendation, city staff states that they are satisfied that Schneider Electric is not in violation of the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance based on their Google searches. Yet it is hard to believe that city staff missed the many webpages where Schneider markets their nuclear weapons experience. For example, Schneider states on their Naval Technology page

Our main application domains include:

Weapon launching control system for nuclear submarine

Nuclear weapon handling system

Oakland has a long tradition of taking strong progressive stands on national issues with legislation such as South African divestment, establishing the City of Refuge (anti-ICE raids), leadership on cannabis normalization, standing against Arizona’s racist anti-immigrant law, and many others.

It is from this proud tradition that the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance originates. Oakland has for decades declared that it will in no way be complicit in building nuclear weapons and has refused to work with any nuclear weapons contractors.

These are Oakland values.

Unfortunately, it seems that our current crop of city leaders do not share these values.

Since the beginning of the DAC project city staff has been looking for ways to use nuclear weapons contractors to build their vision of an all-knowing Orwellian surveillance apparatus.

The city’s first contractor to work on the DAC, military giant SAIC, was removed from the contract after it’s work on nuclear weapons became public. SAIC also perjured themselves by signing a statement that they did not violate the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance. But public records request documents indicate that city staff knew all along that SAIC was in violation of the ordinance. When they were found out staff were searching for ways to help SAIC bypass the ordinance, they then helped SAIC finish building a major phase of the DAC project and paid them the full $2.6 million for their illegal work before the contract was ended.

The Oakland Privacy Group believes city staff are attempting similar maneuvers with Schneider Electric to get the spy center completed in violation of the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance.

If the city moves forward with these plans legal action will be taken to stop it.

About the Oakland Privacy Working Group

The Oakland Privacy Group is a grassroots community organization concerned with the encroaching threat of high-tech surveillance. It has been organizing the swelling grassroots opposition to the DAC since the issue was first noticed at a city council meeting in July of 2013. They have an online presence Twitter @OaklandPrivacy and at http://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com/

About the DAC

The DAC is a multi-million dollar data and video spy center funded with federal anti-terrorism dollars originally intended for the port but then turned against the residents of Oakland. The most comprehensive information on the DAC is available on Oakland Wiki at http://oaklandwiki.org/Domain_Awareness_Center

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